Tradition, mistletoe, ugly deers and horizons
by paranoid woman
Summary: Summary: “Who knows, maybe I’ll be lucky and get the chance to kiss you tonight!” Warnings: SLASH, Sam/Spike, rated T.


**Title:** Tradition, mistletoe, ugly deers and horizons  
**Word Count:** 2,547.  
**Characters/pairings:** Sam/Spike.  
**Rating:** T.  
**Warnings:** None.  
**Spoilers:** None.  
**Summary:** "Who knows, maybe I'll be lucky and get the chance to kiss you tonight!"  
**Beta:** None this time, so please forgive my mistakes.  
**Written for:** The 2009 Flashpoint Secret Santa Exchange.  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own Flashpoint or anything related to it.

**XxX**

**Tradition, mistletoe, ugly deers and horizons**

"Spike, how long is this going to take? We still have to finish the decorations," Sam called from outside Spike's bedroom. He'd been there waiting for about twenty minutes now and if they didn't get hurry, things weren't going to be ready when Spike's family arrived at his apartment.

"Just a second, I need your opinion!" Spike said from inside the room, and a moment later, the door was open for Sam to come in.

There was a big collection of clothes spread on the bed, on the chairs, on the carpet, and Sam had to be careful not to step on them. Sure, Spike had been trying to figure out what to wear to impress his family on Christmas Eve tonight, but this too much of a mess to do when there were so many preparations to get done.

Spike was facing the mirror as he looked at himself with obvious pride. For a tiny, little moment, Sam thought that maybe, just maybe, making the right decision about the perfect outfit was going to be quick.

Until Spike turned around from the mirror and Sam could see what he'd actually picked. "So?" Spike asked with a big smile on his face.

It took Sam a couple of seconds to recover from the image of him in those clothes, until he managed to say clearly, _"No."_

Spike frowned, dumbfounded. "Why not?"

"A giant red deer on green and golden background? And green pants?" Did Sam actually have to explain it? "C'mon, there's got to be something else we can use," he muttered, checking out the other clothes around the room. Finally, he spotted an elegant green shirt and black pants and went to grab them so he could show them to Spike. "What about this?"

"Let me see…" Spike analyzed the garments with a focused look on his face and said, "Classy, simple and festive."

"Exactly. And it doesn't have disturbing Christmas deers all over it." Great, problem solved… but for some reason, Spike didn't seem very convinced. "What's wrong? I thought you' liked it."

"I did… but… I don't know." Spike let himself fall onto the bed. "My mom gave me this sweater last Christmas," he said, looking down at the creepy red deer. "I think she's kind of counting on me wearing it tonight."

"So it was a gift," Sam concluded, sitting next to him. "Okay. I guess you could… wear it somehow… just not with the green pants, please."

"Got it, I don't want to look like an elf." Spike gave Sam a warm smile, making his lips curve up in return. "Awesome… Thanks for helping me out… The house, the meal, the decorations…"

"Which we still have to finish," Sam quickly reminded him. "We're gonna have to hurry up before everyone gets here."

"Yeah, sorry it took me so long to pick this outfit. I couldn't have done it without you, though. I was going towards a fashion disaster."

Being told he'd been that helpful was a nice thing to hear. "Hey, the sweater was a present. You gotta wear it."

Spike grinned. "I bet I'd find something like that if I checked out your wardrobe."

Thank goodness Spike was wrong. "Oh, no… My mom never gives me clothing for Christmas, she prefers spending money on plants and stuff for my apartment. And my dad… well, he'd never even think about giving me anything else than a handshake…" Sam stopped speaking right after that. This wasn't an issue he should talk about with Spike tonight. Christmas Eve was all about happy families getting together, exchanging presents and sharing a toast, not about mean fathers taking Christmas away from their kids.

"I'm sorry."

Sam knew why Spike had said that and the situation made him uncomfortable. "It's not like I want anything from him," he clarified.

"I'm still sorry, man. Your family should be with you tonight."

Suddenly there was Spike's warm hand on Sam's shoulder, squeezing it lightly to comfort him. There was nothing Sam could say; he really wanted to change the subject as soon as possible and focus on the decorations before Spike's family got to his apartment and found the Christmas preparations incomplete.

Spike got up from the bed and went towards the door, showing Sam the way out. "Anyway, like I said… Thanks for helping me out. My family's going to be impressed. Especially my mom."

"Hey, this is the closest I get to having an actual Christmas reunion, so I should be thanking you. Now, about the decorations…"

"Yeah, what's left to do? Maybe we should just focus on the most important things and skip the rest, because there's no time to do everything we planned."

"Agreed. We should go for the traditional stuff."

"Great. I'll change my pants, grab the bunch of things I bought yesterday to finish the decorations and then I'll meet you at the living you, all right?"

Once in the dining room, Sam observed the great job he and Spike had done so far. The smell of food coming out of the kitchen was delicious, the Christmas tree looked awesome and the colors of the carpet and napkins on the table matched perfectly. Only some of the decorations were missing. Everything was clean, the atmosphere was warm and nice and they'd even planned what music they were going to play in the background.

Sam went towards the stereo and played the first album. "Kissing by the mistletoe" by Aretha Franklin began, since it was one of Spike's mother's favorite songs. It was so ironic that when Spike was back with two boxes full of decorations and put them on the table, the first thing Sam spotted was something that kind of ruined the Christmas mood to him, just like that song's title.

"Ah… mistletoe," he said, biting his lip as he sat down at the table. "That's kind of… dangerous."

"For who?" Spike wanted to know.

Sam figured out he could try to explain that without getting into details. "Look, I think it's a very nice tradition and everything, but the situation can get weird if two guys are standing right under it, you know?"

"Thousands of millions of people have stood under the mistletoe, even men, and nothing bad has come out of it. Trust me," Spike assured him.

"Well, I hear differently." The second after Sam said those words, he deeply regretted it. Who was going to stop Spike from asking now? Spike's curiosity was going to be the end of him.

Leaving the decorations aside, Spike sat at the table beside him. "Okay, Braddock. Spit it out. Who was the lucky guy who got to kiss you?"

"I never said…" Sam tried to pretend he wasn't saying what he was actually saying, but he couldn't turn back time, and he ended up taking a deep breath and letting the truth roll out of his tongue. "Fine… It was just one time… It was before I headed out to Afghanistan. During Christmas Eve, I had a fight with my dad, ended up in a bar where there was a party… I was kind of drunk."

"And there was mistletoe all around and you had to kiss a guy, I get it."

"No, I didn't kiss him." That was exactly the problem, which was very, very disturbing, because Sam hadn't wanted to kiss the guy. "He said… something to me."

"Which was…?" Spike muttered, encouraging him to continue with the story.

It was hard for Sam to repeat what that man had told him right after he'd seen the mistletoe hanging above them. He shook his head, ran one hand over his forehead and explained, "He said… that I was the last person he would ever like to kiss."

Said in such words, the idea sounded terribly stupid, and that only made Sam feel even worse for bringing up the issue. Embarrassed and confused, he feared Spike's response.

"Maybe he had a boyfriend and he'd rather kiss him."

"Nope. I asked while I was trying to make some conversation to pass time and forget about the weird moment, and he told me he'd been lonely for a year now. Alone and willing to hook up with someone again. Still, he didn't want to have anything to do with me. To my drunk brain, that kind of hurt… in its own twisted way."

So there. End of story. There was no need to keep talking about it.

"Was that guy out of his _freaking mind_?" Spike snapped, frowning. "Look at you! You're not ugly at all and you have a great personality… I don't get it."

"Thanks, I guess…" That was the only reply that came to Sam's head. Hearing Spike tell him he was attractive felt like a conversation that could only happen in an alternate reality. He prayed for it to end soon, but apparently, Spike had other plans.

"I can't believe it. A guy telling you that he didn't want to kiss you? Wow. It was great that you didn't make out with him then. He's totally crazy."

"I was bothered by the general comment, nothing more than that. I was feeling like crap and I took it very seriously at the time, but of course, I didn't want anything to do with the guy. It was just dizziness, alcohol, a party and mistletoe to me. You know, tradition." There was a long moment of silence in which Sam wanted to disappear from Earth.

"Things don't always end up the same way they did that time. I think for some people mistletoe gives them the chance to try a new experience and maybe expand their horizons."

"Expand… their horizons," Sam repeated, getting the idea.

"Yeah."

Sam considered it for a second and decided that maybe it didn't sound so bad. "Mmm. Interesting."

"Told you so," Spike said, and he got up from the chair. "Oh, and just so you know, I've had to kiss other guys on Christmas Eve too. My family usually invites a lot of neighbors, so eventually you end up making out with one of them."

All that came out of Sam's mouth was an awkward, "Okay," because the image of Spike kissing another man was a bit too intense for him to bare.

"Oh, and… um… if it makes you feel better, I gotta tell you… I wouldn't mind kissing you under the mistletoe. After all, there's no underlying meaning there. It's only a little kiss, nothing more. Just tradition, like you said."

"Um… good to know."

"Who knows, maybe I'll be lucky and get the chance to kiss you tonight!" Spike happily commented, in a way that didn't seem like a joke at all… in a way that made Sam blush and wonder what the hell they were actually talking about right now.

They stared at each other's eyes for a moment, Spike's gaze so intense as he leaned over that Sam's heart jumped inside his chest at the nearness of him.

There was no mistletoe above them. Would Spike actually do it? Would he…?

Thank God he didn't.

Spike's hand grabbed the box that was on the table right beside Sam's arm, barely brushing it. "I'm gonna… I'm gonna finish decorating the kitchen… Can you take care of the dining room?" Spike asked.

Sam could see that his friend's cheeks had gotten a bit of color, and a shiver ran down his spine at the possibilities Christmas Eve could bring to his life. It scared him that he was actually considering the implications of such changes in his life. The worst part was that Sam would always wonder from now on what kissing Spike's lips would be like, what they'd felt against his, soft, warm and wet. How his hair would look like if he ran his fingers through it and…

Okay, Sam had to make himself stop his crazy, little fantasy right there. "Sure, I'll take care of it… Don't… don't worry."

"Cool, 'cause I'd like you… to stay here, if you can… Share the meal with me and my family."

Tricky suggestion. Still, Sam immediately responded, "No problem." Where the hell had that answer come from?

"I'm… glad." Spike coughed, pressed the box he'd grabbed tight to his chest and abandoned the room. Sam didn't miss the heavy sound of his footsteps and his own fastened breathing.

Sam closed his eyes and told himself that this was ridiculous, that he couldn't have just agreed to stay at the house knowing that there was the serious possibility that he might get kissed by Spike tonight. He forced himself to open his eyes, hold himself together and do what he was supposed to do – help Spike making his family happy on Christmas Eve. Nothing weird had to happen. Not if he didn't wanted to.

But then he remembered Spike's tone when he'd said that… _Who knows, maybe I'll be lucky and get the chance to kiss you tonight!_

Sam trembled and didn't understand why, although… maybe it was because he actually wanted… No. That made no sense at all.

He grabbed a bit of mistletoe from the box Spike had left on the table and used a chair to try to hang it in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. It was a complicated operation. For some reason, the mistletoe just didn't want to remain there.

"Hey, why don't you take a look at the food? I'd like your opinion on…" Spike asked as he walked into the dining room again. He stood beside Sam with a little smile on his face until he looked up and saw the mistletoe above them, in the other man's hands.

His gaze landed on Sam's and both of them swallowed. Apparently, expanding their horizons would be mandatory for them during this particular Christmas celebrations.

Sam swallowed when Spike's hand brushed his leg and he couldn't help the mistletoe slipping from his hands.

"Here," Spike muttered, picking it up as Sam stepped down the chair and noticed how the other man's hands were shaking.

Breathing heavily, Spike leaned over and hesitantly placed his trembling hands on both sides of Sam's head. Sam closed his eyes and his whole body tensed, as if he was waiting for his heart to explode inside of him.

Spike's lips brushed his…

The door bell rang.

Sam opened his eyes and saw Spike stepping aside, all silence and confusion, a vivid mirror of his own feelings. He saw him greet his family with kisses and cheers, he saw him walk them over the table and offer them a drink. He barely listened to Spike introducing him to his family, and didn't even notice when it was that he shook all of the guests' hands. He didn't even see Spike's mother telling him how great he looked in the deer sweater she'd bought for him last year.

He couldn't stop thinking about Spike. He wanted him _now_. Badly. He'd been so close, yet so far from kissing him…

Sam spent the rest of the night observing, analyzing, finding the right moment, calculating his chances. Sooner or later, he'd get what he wanted tonight, because he knew it was what Spike wanted too.

None of them liked half-way done things at all.

**The End.**

**XxX**


End file.
